Subject Y0XT39
by Janazza
Summary: Keith knew something was off with Shiro. His touch, his voice, his commands. He just hopes it isn't what he thinks it is.
1. Chapter 1

He saw it in the very beginning, when his mind was on the same wavelength as the Black Lion, feeling, knowing, Shiro was close. On some inhuman level, he sense Shiro's presence, like feeling stares behind his back.

And when he held Shiro, dehydrated, exhausted Shiro, he felt the tiredness and relief coming off Shiro in waves from his shaking shoulders. He had his Shiro back. In one piece. No more experimentation or life threatening injuries. Just a very tired Shiro.

But even over the exhaustion that flooded his system, Keith could see the spark in Shiro's eye, see the fire that drove him back to Voltron, back to Keith.

It was something Keith couldn't name.

* * *

It should have been obvious to Keith that something was different. Of course, everything felt off, but he could never put his finger on it. The way he smiles, gives commands, how they argue - all of it wasn't the same. It was like relearning Shiro the first time Keith got him back and the empire's arena tore him apart and put him back together with chinks in the glass vase that was supposed to be Shiro's mind.

This Shiro was honest, genuine, still a leader where needed.

But the two of them couldn't click.

Keith used to love being next to Shiro, enjoyed the responsibility, the trust, Shiro had in him. Of course, Shiro always worried about him, but he could act as necessary. Shiro trusted him to follow his gut.

But now he felt trapped at Shiro's side. Belittled. Like a child. In spite of Keith's ideas, Shiro had to disregard him and provide his own command over voltron. A part of Keith feared this new Shiro, one with less regard to safety.

" _You're going to have to lower your shield, shoot the cargo ship, and deal with the consequences."_

Shiro didn't know the raw power of Lotor's ship, the brightness in its shots or the heat it gave off, not while on the Castle.

" _You need to make a decision!"_

And Keith did. If not for Keith's quick thinking and disregard to Shiro's orders, Voltron would have taken a major hit.

And even as he did so, he feared to see Shiro.

And so as weeks turned into months with no change, Keith became more and more discouraged. Perhaps this was the new Shiro, someone Keith couldn't read like the back of his hand, not the keeper of his insecurities.

Shiro knew how to push his buttons. And on several occasions that's cause some mild altercations.

But Keith thought himself crazy. There was no way his Shiro had changed so much that Keith didn't want to stay in the same room as him. Keith must be acting selfish and blinded by what he wanted and not noticing that these changes were always there. Keith had always put him on a pedestal. Maybe he was finally seeing Shiro, the human.

But it was in a moment of serenity, when the two yearned for comfort and didn't trust anyone else to see them so weak that Keith found the final puzzle piece to his suspicions.

It was after a fight that came too close to their ends. Shiro told him to run, but Keith couldn't. Not when Shiro's shoulder soaked his suit in blood and his metallic arm hung loosely as dead weight. Keith had nearly been impaled by the long sword a rogue fighter had cut Shiro with. Then it was almost Keith's head, almost his arm, sword to sword when firearms existed and reduced the chances of having your arm severed from your body. It seemed to silly, with technology so advanced, they fought with sticks and stones.

And when the paladins won, they hid in their corners in thought, questioning if this fight is worth their lives, if they will even survive a war that's waged on for generations, and if they will leave this place still human or merely toy soldiers.

The wound wasn't deep, Keith knew, but he still nudged Shiro towards the healing pods.

"You didn't even go in the pods after the Trials," Shiro argued.

"Yah, and you're going in now." There wasn't room to bargain. Keith's nerves were still shot, his fingers trembling slightly and his movements rigid. Even as he tried to hide it, Shiro saw. Shiro always saw. "You know the rules. Suit off."

Keith nudged him to a side room, one filled with suits for the healing pods. Coran once explained that it was so the clothes didn't interfere with the healing process without the person being publicly indecent.

 _"_ _It's like a sponge with dozens of holes. Looks like it covers but magic can seep through"_

 _"_ _So you're saying Altean magic is like atmospheric?"_

 _"_ _Sometimes!"_

Shiro attempted to reach the latch that would release the chest armour but it held just out of his limited reach, especially with the robotic arm not fully functioning. It twitched but its movements were far from smooth for fine finger movements.

Before Shiro could even ask, Keith had reached for him, unlatching the armour carefully, avoiding jostling his shoulder. It was peeling the skin tight suit where the blood had dried and clotted that was the real hassle, another scar that would eventually fade from the raw red to a noticeable pink. Keith once counted the scars on Shiro's torso, dumbfounded by their length and width, some seeming too thick and Keith wondered if his body had truly been torn in half only for the witch to sew him back together.

Even more, the obvious surgical scars, the ones too neat reaching his navel and over his sternum, only solidified for Keith the need to end the Empire's reign, if not to protect the many races they'd come across, then to ensure nothing like what happened to Shiro, their _champion,_ could happen to anyone else.

And so Keith counted the scars on Shiro, memorized them as a cartographer would his map, to remind him why he was doing this, why he threw everything he knew away for a war Earth had never even noticed. Let them stay in their bubble while they still can. And one day perhaps Shiro can be left alone to be oblivious to the universe's further cruelties.

Knowing his scars in an odd sense brought him comfort. It made him anxious not to know, like not knowing meant he didn't know Shiro. Many months had been lost between the day of the Kerberos Launch to the escape pod crash landing only miles away from Keith's little shack he called home. It was time that changed them both, marred skin and thoughts that plagued them in the quiet moments away from the others.

They made slow work peeling the black spandex away, revealing his torso.

And so he knew every scar, or so he thought. He knew their position, how they felt beneath his fingertips, how the skin stretched like a rubber band and threatened to tear at any moment.

But if he knew every scar, why was one missing?

It would be one thing if it were small, like the one that's the size of a dime, a small puncture, at Shiro's left tricep from a soldier in a Galra Cargo ship. Maybe it had faded, perhaps the continuous trips to the healing pods added up to enough time for the smaller wounds to fade completely.

But it wasn't small. In fact, it took up several inches of Shiro's torso, the size of Shiro's hand, and once bled magic. The wound left by the witch Haggar, that Keith hadn't charted until he found Shiro surrounded by a reptilian pack that circled Shiro like wolves and Keith piloted the Black Lion for the first time. It had glowed, he remembered, watched it taint Shiro's blood like a toxin and deepening the hue of his veins. For second, as Shiro told him to be a leader, he truly believed help wouldn't come quick enough. And that thought alone scared him more than the rest of the war.

Scars that bleed magic, they learnt, looks raw and repulsive, twisting the skin into a vortex and ate away at his side. In spite of his time in the healing pods, the marred skin hardly looked healed.

Yet it was gone.

"Shiro."

But why?

Shiro turned to face Keith. "Yah?"

"Sorry. It's nothing."

"That's not a 'nothing' face. . . Is it about today?"

"Y-Yah. That was too close."

"It was. But I'm fine. We're _both_ fine and the team is safe. You did good today."

The praise left his mouth dry. "Go get some beauty sleep."

"Ouch, I thought you liked me rugged and dirty."

Keith rolled his eyes. "You look good either way."

"Just good," Shiro mocked hurt. "I thought I was beautiful."

"Of course." Standing on his toes, Keith left a peck on Shiro's nose. "Always. Don't think you can distract me. Get in the healing pod."

It wasn't until Shiro had settled in the healing pod drifting off in a medicated sleep that Keith's restraint stripped away and in waves of questions crashed down on him.

It's not there.

Shiro hasn't been the same since his rescue.

Keith thought it was because of the Galra. Maybe- maybe they said or did something that turned him cold. He wasn't the same Shiro he knew, not the one of the Garrison. Shiro still held him the same, kissed him the same, but it was like a mock of what they once had.

Shiro had never been sharp with him like this, not when they were alone at the Garrison or while in the Castle. He had pushed for Keith to be better before his second disappearance, to be someone worth leading, to keep his head but trust his gut.

But in the past months, Shiro had taken every turn to counter every one of Keith's plans and orders, ignoring the time Shiro had taken to training and expecting Keith to make rash decisions for the team. Shiro told him to keep a cool head and do what's best for the team and he has. Keith truly has tried, and yet every command is overthrown by Shiro's words.

And it hit hard, this next thought, like a shock aimed straight for his chest and all the breath seized out of him.

This isn't his Shiro.

And suddenly the thought of every touch, a hand on his shoulder, hands clasped, brush of the shoulders as they walk down the hall, felt perverse. His skin began to crawl and itch, burning where he imagined Shiro's fingers' ghosting over his skin. What had once been a comfort felt like open wounds.

He thought of the mock Shiro when Voltron ripped through to another dimension. The other world mimicked closely. That Shiro wasn't his Shiro, didn't hold himself right, but it was Shiro's face.

It didn't make sense, not really, but from the very beginning he had been told to trust his gut.

And now, all his gut screamed was to get away.

* * *

Keith had a hunch. Before his second disappearance, Shiro always said to trust his instincts. If something urged him to act or think a certain way, there must be some underlying reason, something he's seeing that he can't exactly explain why. And Keith trusted Shiro.

He had a hunch about the Blade of Marmora.

Few people knew about Shiro's disappearance. Or at least didn't know it was the true Black Paladin that was M.I.A. When they spoke to different colonies, only the leaders who met with Voltron knew someone was missing. And when fighting Lotor for the first time, Keith piloted the Black Lion.

But the Blade of Marmora knew from the beginning about Shiro's disappearance. Keith after all begged for their help.

His steps had become lighter after his time with the blades. Infiltration after training after infiltration and only more training conditioned you quickly.

It also taught you to look for backdoors even the enemy doesn't know about, had never considered to be a problem.

The Blades are a small, secretive group with information on everything imaginable. They studied trade routes, military movement, academic research, celebrations even. And not just for the Galra Empire either.

With all this information, they kept it locked away, mostly kept under Kolivan's eye only. His room was always locked and guarded. Which is a good thing Keith had often trained with the early morning guard, a bulky Galra with a bellowing laughter after a good drink. While stationed, he was still and observant, but he had grown a soft spot for the little human in their ranks. So when Keith stole one of Pidge's tasers (" _For my brother."_ ), the guard never had a chance.

And so Keith snuck his way into a forbidden room, the leader's room, where lines of shelves contained medical journals that describe how to attach nerves to an artificial prosthetic. Binders contained inventory of supplies. Neat files contained progress reports of different projects scattered among different hideouts and within the empire at different sectors.

At a planet with dozens of rings making belts of all different angles, the Blades were testing the rings to be used a natural shield for a potential outpost. Another on a distant planet with only primitive habitants attempted to produce quintessence out of plant life.

Some were far crueler. Like the numerous attempts to remake the monsters of Haggar's design. Subjects were driven to madness, losing control of their bodies as prosthetic after prosthetic replaced them. An intellectual species was being harvested for its unique ability to produce high levels of quintessence for their size like cattle. The tribes have agreed to sell enemy tribe captures.

Some of these were coded, taking time to decipher and decrypt using the blades navigators that are given to all blades but make no sense without some training. Pidge had worked on her own translator for both Galran and Altean. Without his access to Pidge and the navigator, decoding would have been impossible.

But there were thick files that disturbed Keith the most. They were close to the front n the line of folders that stuffed the bottom cabinet drawer, more recent and important files. The first opened to a series of numbers, a code for the subject, a summary, including a picture.

And Keith would recognize the hairline, the strong jaw and furrowed eyebrows. In those eyes, a thousands words hidden away, stories of ghost and curiosity.

But they were stories Keith didn't know. Those were not Shiro's eyes.

He brushed his finger over the nose scar.

Shiro.

But not his Shiro.

The hair was long, just like the day Keith found him adrift. The pale streak still caught one's eye, stark against the black

Not-his-Shiro once mumbled his subject number in his sleep. Now it stood out at the top of the page. For weeks he had wondered what was wrong, why Shiro's touch felt wrong, _dirty,_ why he felt ridiculed like a child for his judgements as leader, for the nausea when looking at Shiro's scars.

It could all be summed up in one set of numbers and letters.

[subject Y0XT39]

And he read. He read and read the words unnatural to earth, talk of quintessence and other organic materials synthesized to human bone and muscle. There was a complication in producing enzymes for the stomach so the subject could live outside the growing tanks. The subject grew with two arms. To keep authenticity, the arm was cut off with an unsharpened blade that took two strikes to sever once it had reached "maturity."

His stomach knotted and his eyes stung. Beside this, a chant echoed throughout his skull.

Get out get out get out get out.

Subject was released two months after Subject Y0XT disappeared leaving the current Paladins distraught and leaderless. In spite the Red Paladin's attempts lead, the Marmoran council unanimously agree him to unfit. Subject Y0XT39, the 39th attempted clone and the only one to grow appropriately with proper responses and accepting of the implanted memories, was released from a Galra ship with a Blade as it's high commander.

The second file held the real Shiro, _his Shiro._

Memories were extracted in the capture. The subject was extracted from the Galra Prison before the second amputation, his eye, because he resembled the species of Earth. Scouting years prior claimed the presence of a lion to be traced back to the planet. The empire did not know, or at least not yet. Interrogation produced knowledge of Earth's lack of knowledge of Voltron or the Blue Lion.

Their plan was simple. Implant thoughts of the Blue lion, implant the memory of a simple escape to keep his species unsuspicious. The implanted thoughts would hopefully influence the subject to stay around the blue lion until Blades can extract him. A tracker would be placed in the prosthetic to ensure the extraction is simple. Should the Subject Y0XT fail, clones were underway.

Things didn't go as planned of course. The subject landed on Earth only to launch back into space twelve hours later assumingly as the Blue Lion's pilot. Directions say to leave the specimen alone and simply observe his progress. Perhaps the organization would not need to step in at the rate Voltron had grown.

The Subject appeared in the Blade's headquarters as the Black Paladin so as to make a deal. The deal would have been made easily if not for the Red Paladin. The Red Paladin has a connection to the Blades, likely a descendant, and must be kept unaware of the Blade's meddling at all cost.

Further notes explained that the interaction with the Red Paladin during the trials provided enough DNA and memory extraction to begin cloning immediately. The clone's aggressiveness would be tamed enough to reduce risk on missions but not to an extent the other members of Voltron become suspicious.

Keith read and reread the documents, noted the pictures of his Shiro and the 39th clone. Somewhere in the mess of files was Keith's own, describing the same cloning process. He read them again and again and memorized the terminology, the objectiveness, how distant and medical the language treated the organic beings it meddled with.

And at the base of his throat where it burned he voiced the only thing he think of, with eyes hot and chest too tight and a longing for the Shiro that isn't in the castle. He voiced aloud with an inhuman growl that summed all his anger and betrayal, his sorrow and longing, he fear and lonesomeness.

Keith Kogane would make them _pay._


	2. Chapter 2

**So I genuinely believe the BOM are not telling the whole truth. Most of this is based on a hunch, but some things are also very interesting.**

 **Who knows about Shiro's disappearance?:** Only the BOM are made aware outright that Shiro is missing. Not one of the paladins, Shiro, paladin of black.

Lotor when facing Keith and the other first time notes that this is not the same team, but he is unaware of why that is. He doesn't know that Shiro is gone or that three of the lions have new paladins. Thus, he can't be behind Kuron's release.

If Lotor doesn't know, Haggar and Zarkon wouldn't know either. If Lotor truly had full reign while his father was out cold, he would have been notified if a paladin was missing and which one. While cloning seems up Haggar's alley, I don't think she's behind this.

On top of this, what would be the point of giving back a paladin? Doing so could have jeopardized the Galra. Lotor would regret giving them Kuron considering Voltron (not the lions, Voltron) stopped him and the teludav.

 **What do we know about the BOM?:** Knowledge or death. Access in the Empire

The Blades have less care about life. Everyone's life is a noble sacrifice. In S3E6, Kuron tells Voltron to take the hit to stop the teludav from being stolen. He told Keith to accept getting his by Lotor's "death ray" to stop the generals from stealing the teludav. That sacrifice talk is very BOM.

They've infiltrated the empire. This would give them access to potential medical knowledge including some of the Empires in-progress works.

*not really evidence: Ulaz was likely one of these. The fact Kuron thinks he sees Ulaz after waking up is similar to how Ulaz rescued Shiro the first time: breaking in and stopping the Empire from doing whatever testing they were planning.

*not really evidence: I thought it was interesting that Kolivan is still stone cold to Keith. I thought this was because the writers just don't have enough screen time to add this, but most often when you have the orphan kid who is trained by an older male, they form a slight father-son bond. This isn't seen. Kolivan doesn't smile at Keith's progress, potential, or give kind advice when Keith doesn't know where he stands in Voltron. He's cold, objective - like we're not supposed to like him or see him as a role model when that's the exact role he should be playing in a classic dreamworks/disney movie.

 **What is Shiro's amnesia** : Note this is SHIRO.

He forgets nearly everything but remembers voltron, voltron, voltron. Out of everything he remembers about the year he was gone, "they destroy worlds," "aliens are coming here for a weapon," and "we have to find voltron." it seems so bizarre. And after finally crash landing on earth, _home_ , he doesn't even think about the garrison, his family, the happiness to be on earth, he thinks Voltron, voltron, voltron. That being said, could it be argued, that the memory was implanted? A command so strong, Shiro doesn't think of anything else (until meeting with Keith again?). Considering on earth he didn't even remember ulaz, is interesting.

He doesn't even remember who held him with Keith ask where was in S1E1. Doesn't remember who captured him, or "where he's been."

 **Now after all this, I know there are some plot holes. There are things I can't explain and some evidence can be explained as something else. But overall, I think the way the BOM was introduced and how they acted in S3 and S4 is peculiar. I don't include Ulaz in these thoughts. After all, he had already defied Kolivan by seeking out Shiro (but that could all be staged too to bring Shiro to them eventually (that's a whole other theory i thought of but have decided to drop)). Same with face. But overall, I think there is something weird about the BOM.**

 **Now if you cared to get this far, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Do you think this is too far a stretch? Or do you think the BOM is deserving of scrutiny? Thank you for taking the time to read this ridiculous theory that I cannot shake!**


End file.
